


(title to be determined) -- abandoned

by sera12105



Category: Ghost - Mystery Skulls (Music Video), Mystery Skulls (Band)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-07
Updated: 2015-01-31
Packaged: 2018-02-28 13:53:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2735000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sera12105/pseuds/sera12105
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lewis comes back, at the expense of Arthur's life. (Not much to summarize as this is still barely a work >.>;;; )</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Coward & The Flashback

The coward struggles with your hands around his neck. Cries, pleads with you squeezing. Wheezes when you choke him.  
He stops when it snaps. Goes limp as your grip loosens. Stares blankly at you. Through you. Drops to the floor when you let go.  
She comes in with the dog, staring at you, at him crumpled on the floor. Your heart beats, reaches out. She touches it and sparks fly.  
Memories flood in; not yours. His.  
\---  
Staring at his back as you peer over the edge of the cliff. The emotions swirling in the back of your head. The strongest, fear at the precarious stunt he’s pulling. Sadness for a reason you don't understand. Loneliness. Unfamiliar voices speaking, telling you things you don't want to hear. How you’re unnecessary. Unneeded. Unwanted. Unloved.  
Tingling in your fingers. Glancing down to your skin. The green tint crawling up your arm.  
Voices getting louder, clashing against each other, bouncing around your skull. "He made her ignore you. He doesn't care about you. He made her hate you too. He wants you gone. Don't let him get rid of you. Get rid of him first. It's easy. Push him." You didn't want to.  
A voice above the rest. "I'll do it for you." You see green in one eye. You push him. He falls. The dog barks, growls. The voices scream at you, battering your fragile mind. You feel regret, fear, anguish.  
A red flash from behind you. Pain in the arm. Looking down. It's gone. Blood gushes down your side. The voices stop. One lingers, but for only a second. "Murderer." Then it disappears.  
Things blur, you feel dizzy. She's screaming, faint and echoed. You think; "I killed my best friend. I'm sorry... I deserve this... I'm sorry..."  
All goes black.  
\---  
Confused, you think it over. You recognize a foreign pattern in the flashback. The voices, the green tint, the arm.  
He didn't kill you. Something else did.  
You come reeling back to reality. She's sobbing over him. You look at his body, the way it's sprawled out, the odd angle of his neck.  
Your heart goes cold. You get down beside him.  
He's still, staring out ahead like he's stargazing. Eyes empty, cold.  
"Arthur. Get up." He does this sometimes. Passes out under extreme stress.He's relatively easy to rouse when it happens. "You're fine. Wake up."  
He doesn't respond. Doesn't move. Doesn't breathe.  
"Stop playing around. I'm sorry. I'm not going to hurt you."  
She lifts him to her chest, sniffling. His head crooks back at an unnatural angle. His neck isn't right.  
It takes you until this to realize he's dead. "Fuck. Fuck, Arthur, don't do this. Get up."  
His chest glows, his heart beats. Your heart beats. Sparks fly. They clash. You feel jolted, alive.  
She stares at you, eyes wide with hope, but swirled with anguish, filled with tears. "He didn't deserve this."  
You live.  
He stays that way.  
\---  
He's cremated. Spread out in the park he always took Mystery to.  
Vivi learns to accept it. She doesn't take it too hard; you try to make up for the time you lost to help her move on.


	2. The Stranger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A stranger wakes up in a rainy forest.

You wake up in a dark forest. It’s raining. You have no recollection of what happened to you. You’re cold and wet and your neck hurts.  
You want to go home but you don’t know where you are.  
Crying won’t help. You struggle to your feet and head out into the wilderness.  
There’s a road nearby. It looks like it goes on for miles. You sigh and start the long trek ahead.  
\---  
It feels like it’s been hours. You’re shivering, drenched in water despite your efforts to stay under the trees along the side of the road. It really can’t get much worse, so you get back out on the road and continue walking.  
A car comes along and you jump out near it, waving your arms and shouting, hoping they could maybe give you a lift. It barrels on by, not even slowing down. You realize that if you had been stupid and hopeful enough to get closer it would have run you over.  
You hang your head and continue along the way.  
\---  
Days later you reach a town. It feels familiar but you have no clue where anything is, so you just lurk in the shadows. You’ve realized you’re dead when you learn that nobody really talks to you and ‘being hit by cars ends’ with cars going right through you.  
You wonder what you did to deserve this. Ghosts usually only get stuck on Earth if they have unfinished business, right?  
Maybe you killed someone. Sometimes ghosts get stuck on earth for sinning, right?  
God, who knows.  
\---  
It’s been a month and a half and you still can’t figure out why you’re here or what for. You’re starting to accept the fact that you’re stuck here and life out the rest of your lonely, miserable existence.  
You pass the time by practicing your new abilities, messing with electronics and burning trash.  
Sometimes you feel a strange despair, like you’ve lost something you loved. You wish you knew what it was or what happened to it.  
\---  
You see a stranger at the restaurant nearby one day. You follow her, staying out of visibility. She feels so familiar. Like maybe you had a friend like that, or a lover, maybe a sibling, or family.  
She has a good life. A man who loves her, a loyal pet. It doesn’t make sense that she’s not happy like you’d expect. She visits the graveyard a lot with the man, cries, wishes someone were still there.  
You don’t know who Arthur is. But he sounds important… Like she cared about him. Maybe more than he thought. Like they were best friends.  
You wonder what happened to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah this is kinda cliche and stuff and you probably already know who the stranger is 


	3. Haunting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The group is haunted by an unknown spirit.

You find yourselves being haunted one day. After a week or so, Lewis wants no more of it, wants to get rid of it as soon as possible, but it isn’t malicious, so you settle for holding a communication session via ouija board. You set everything up, get Lewis, and call the spirit.  
The planchette moves to the -hello- position.  
“Good afternoon! Are you the one who’s been interacting with us lately?”  
Planchette moves to -yes-.  
“Who are you?”  
-i dont know-  
“Why have you been following us?”  
-i dreamt of him-  
“Of Lewis?” Lewis seems uncomfortable.  
-yes and i was curious-  
“I didn’t know ghosts could dream.”  
-neither did i-  
“Could you tell me what happened?”  
-he fell-  
Lewis speaks, albeit quickly and hesitantly. “I did fall, but I’m okay now.”  
-you died-  
Lewis goes silent.  
-youre alive-  
You pipe up. “He was given a second chance.”  
It is silent for a moment or two. “Is there anything else you wanted to know?”  
-who was the other one-  
“The other what?”  
-arthur who is arthur-  
Lewis stands and leaves the room in a hurry. the planchette spells out -im sorry-. You sigh. He’s still touchy about it all.  
“Arthur was our friend. We lost him on a haunted mansion expedition.”  
-the name sounds familiar-  
“He had a bit of a reputation with getting involved with spirits, possession, cult sacrifices…” You add in under your breath, “Virgin sacrifices…”  
-he sounds unlucky-  
“He was. But he was a wonderful person. And a great mechanic.”  
-i forgot who i was-  
“Hmm?”  
-hearing about his life i remember my own-  
“Were you a lot like him?”  
-i was a mechanic-  
“He was pretty good at it. He built us the van for our job and even made a prosthetic wheelchair for a paralyzed hamster. He made his own arm too, after he lost it in an accident.”  
An eerie silence settles over the room. The planchette does not respond, but does not move to the -goodbye- position.  
“Are you alright?”  
-how did he die- The planchette spells this out in a hurry, almost urgent.  
“His neck. He broke his neck.”  
The planchette moves to the -goodbye- position, ending the session. It stays there. The air in the room shimmers, and the spirit becomes visible. It has no special features, save two large yellow eyes.  
All is quiet. You and the spirit make eye contact, and the room stays frozen for what seemed like an eternity.  
The tension is broken when Lewis walks back into the room, holding a photograph. You can tell he’s been listening, because it’s a picture of Arthur holding Galahad. It was before he made his prosthetic. He’s holding Galahad, proudly showing off the hamster’s new wheels. There’s a big cheesy smile on his face, and he actually looks happy.  
You’re not entirely sure where he found the photo, but you have a feeling it was from your room.  
He places the photograph on the floor, facing the ghost. “This was Arthur. He was… my best friend. And I hope he still is.”  
The spirit looks closely at the photo, not daring to touch it.  
It’s transparent body flickers yellow-orange, speaking dangerously. Lewis puts an apprehensive hand on your shoulder, ready to bolt if things get ugly.  
The ghost’s appearance flickers, taking on a more human appearance. Messy hair, two long dark strands hanging down in it’s face. One arm with a wristband, the other flickering out of existence. Pants that are way too long, practically tucked underneath the shoes, and the trademark white shirt and jacket. And lastly, the wide orange eyes, flickering between you and Lewis. Filled with golden tears.  
The three of you cry after that, for a long time. Mystery comes late into the night, staying by his side.  
He rejoins the group. It takes a while to regain all his memories, but you refuse to discuss how he died beyond that. You and Lewis both know that if he remembered it, he’d never be able to stay around Lewis again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (writing ouija board usage more like IS THIS EVEN ACCURATE?)


	4. Not here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arthur goes missing.

Arthur’s integration into the group was a long, slow path. It sparked with a memory, ignited with love, and was kindled with acceptance and space.

He’s picked up some habits since the incident, being awfully quiet and preferring to stay partially invisible, as to his living nature. One of the more distressing habits he picks up, however, is disappearing for entire days without warning. When he does return, he seems to not want to explain where he was or what he was doing. Lewis says he’s probably having guilt sessions.

He disappears again one day and it takes 3 days before you begin to become concerned. The longest he’s ever taken to come back home is 2. You and Lewis look up some ways to track spirits. It takes some time to dig up one of Arthur’s old wristbands, but it works. You have Lewis wear it.

\---

The second you put the wristband on, you feel a slight and oddly magnetic tug. You raise your arm and move it side to side, verifying that the pull is heading towards a specific direction. Vivi admires her handiwork and you head to the van. Mystery seems anxious to get moving.

The wristband directs you far out of town, down an abandoned old road. Forest grows around either side until you remember the area.

In less than a second, you and Vivi both know exactly where he is.

And as you continue to drive the last little while, your suspicions are confirmed.

The signs are still there. KEEP OUT. DANGER. CONDEMNED. And as much as it bothers you to enter, you know you have to do inside.

You’ve never had to face your death until now, and it turns your stomach.

Mystery stops at the fork in the road. The familiar sign.

<  ???

??? >

You refuse to take the left path. You can enter the cave, but you can’t handle being on or even near that ledge. Mystery goes with Vivi, presumably to protect her. You head to the right, down to the floor of the cave.

The fog is thick, sickly green as it was on that day. You can barely see. The wristband tugs you past a large stalagmite, stained black with some unknown substance. Taking one look at it makes you nearly throw up on the spot. But you hold it back, hand outstretched and pointing in the direction the wristband pulls at.

There’s a small circle of spikes, almost like a cage. And Arthur sits inside, facing the wall and staring at the floor. He looks alright, but there’s an unfamiliar air about him.

“Arthur.”

There’s a sickening crack as his head - just his head - twists around to face you with a blank stare. You cringe, stepping back uncertainly. His eyes bore into you, hollow but piercing. His eye colours shift, swirling from orange to a sickly, sad yellow as he stands up and turns the rest of his body to face you.

"When you forget why you're dead or where you came from, your memory pulls you the the place in your life where you suffered the most."

He stands rigid, form flickering. His jacket darkens, collar breaking out in tatters. The rest of him slouches, head twitching.

"Especially if you never even got a gravestone to come to. Nobody to visit you. It's hard to anchor yourself without knowing."

His hands clench into fists, tensing and relaxing, fingers curling at his sides.

"Maybe if there was a heart in that hollow body, he might've had some self-control."

His eyes flicker to the ground awkwardly, and when they return with a more vicious gaze, they're a bright, venom green.

This isn’t Arthur.


End file.
